Customer Reviews

Kafka's Selected Stories (Norton Critical Edition)

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This is a terrific collection of Kafka's stories followed by fine critical essays on a number of them. One caveat: Contrary to the implication in the previous reviewer's comments, this edition does NOT contain the famous long story "Metamorphosis." Had there been a "Search Inside!" option, we would have known that Norton did not "select" this great work to be among the "selected stories."

A 'Critical Edition' of this kind provides layers of interpretative richness to add and enhance those the reader makes on their own. Camus said of Kafka that he demands to be read and reread, that in short the essence cannot be given in a single reading or interpretation but that the text is an invitation to open and endless reinterpretation. This characteristic it might be said belongs to all great art both through the generations, and in the heart and mind of the individual at various stages of their lives.

Kafka however with his ambiguous indefinite narratives which at once seem so abstract and so realistic- which tend always toward parable and symbol seems especially suited for the rereading.

The great stories of Kafka, " The Metamorphosis" " The Judgment"

"To a Penal Colony" "The Hunger Artist" "The Country Doctor" all seem to take us on a trip to a place we vaguely fear going to and which we come to understand as not where we want to be yet where we almost preternaturally had to get to.

The depth of this the irony of it holds us in thrall with its terrible beauty.